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<title>Day 5: Separated by KnowledgequeenAbc</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25916308">Day 5: Separated</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnowledgequeenAbc/pseuds/KnowledgequeenAbc'>KnowledgequeenAbc</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Angst Week 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lego Ninjago</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, day 5 give it up for day 5, not my best work but</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:12:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>810</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25916308</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnowledgequeenAbc/pseuds/KnowledgequeenAbc</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lloyd doesn't like being separated from his friends.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Angst Week 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875817</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Day 5: Separated</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lloyd felt weird, sometimes, when he was separated from the others. </p><p>Obviously, he never breathed a word about it. The ninja, in all their familial wisdom, seemed to have picked up on it over the years anyway. </p><p>Being apart from people used to be such a blessing when he was a kid, funnily. After all, every moment in Darkley’s he wasn’t with the other school boys, he breathed easier. </p><p>But if he thought about it, he had something resembling a friend in Brad, and whenever they got separated in the school’s halls … </p><p>Well, no need to dwell on it. The result had never been pretty, and Lloyd had been just fine putting Darkley’s behind him once the ninja took him in. </p><p>Since then, he’d grown so much. Even saved the world once or twice; supposedly that looked great on a resumé, though he wouldn’t know. And he knew he couldn’t have done it if the ninja hadn’t trained him, looked out for him, treated him like family. </p><p>Were his family, the best one he could have asked for, and by this point he knew them, their presence and quirks, like the back of his hand. </p><p>For all the pain the world wanted to throw at them, they triumphed. Lloyd’s family always found a way to patch itself together, and lean into the comfort of knowing they’d made it through, and laugh over pizzas and lame snarking. Prank wars, TV marathons, games and sparring and hanging out—even outside fighting the seasonal baddie, Lloyd never found the other ninja far, and he sunned himself on their warm energy. </p><p>In the bright moments, he paid rapt attention to their raucous laughter, their easy smiles, the fondness they’d never admit softened their eyes, and he felt like the luckiest boy in the world. </p><p>He’d never understood, then, why it always came crashing down the moment he split away and had to be alone with his thoughts. </p><p>The Oni had been defeated, finally the aftermath left behind had healed, and the ninja opted to celebrate with a game night and assorted boxes of Chen’s takeout, courtesy of Skylor. Lloyd was on cloud nine the entire time he creamed everyone in Monopoly, and even by the time they’d wound down to playing poker and sleepily mocking each others’ hands, he was fine to bask in weary contentment.</p><p>“Go on,” Kai said, raising an eyebrow after Lloyd had split his face open with a yawn. “You should probably go get some rest.” </p><p>He didn’t even get a chance to protest before the others piled onto Kai’s concern, Zane finishing it off with, “You gave us all quite the scare earlier, Lloyd. For your own sake, it would be best for you to sleep at a reasonable time.”<br/><br/>He would love to argue with that, but he was the one who “nearly died” or something, and Cole had enough years on him that reversing the argument onto him wouldn’t work. Meeting their expectant faces, he had nothing left to do but heave a sigh and plod towards his room, tossing a slurred “night” over his shoulder.</p><p>Beams of moonlight striped onto the floor through his blinds. Lloyd sat on his mattress and sighed again, dismayed as the quiet sucked away the cheery buzz he’d been riding from enjoying himself for once. As his mood crashed, a heaviness settled down in the void it left, and he was too tired to be alarmed at its familiarity. </p><p>They’d won, and it was well and easy to sit around having fun, but nothing would fix the missing puzzle piece whose absence he’d tried to ignore the whole evening. Lloyd had dared to hope that maybe Garmadon would what, stick around for a nice cup of tea and an evening chat? </p><p>Of course not. The world wasn’t that kind to his family. </p><p>Of course he’d left. </p><p>Lloyd didn’t even know where to begin unpacking it, and he didn’t want to tonight. The tightness of his shoulders and the ugly knot in his gut that have only just started to unravel, now that he knew Cole was alive after all, left lingering malaise as he flopped down onto his bed. The Oni, in their defeat, left a path of destruction in their wake that only time and care would heal. </p><p>He remembered why he hated his time with the Resistance, why his heart always skipped with remnants of unease at the first whispering of tension between the team.</p><p>When the rest of the ninja were with him, sharing his burden and lightening his heart, it was easier not to think about the crushing gut feeling that he’d never be through fighting the world’s war with evil. </p><p>Lloyd felt weird when he was separated from the others. </p><p>He turned angrily, pulling his blanket closer to his chest. Maybe he did need that sleep. </p>
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